Clarendon Borough Council President Paul Pascuzzi joined four other presenters as a panelist on blighted property issues at the Pennsylvania Coalition of Governments (COG) Conference in Harrisburg on Sept. 7-8.
He took time at the Warren County COG meeting last Wednesday to discuss that experience.
"We're actually a little ahead of where they are (on blighted property)," Pascuzzi said.
He said the opportunity to see what other COGs are implementing was an eye-opener.
"It was interesting to see what the urban councils of governments are doing," Pascuzzi said, "as opposed to what the rural councils are."
He noted the COGs in Allegheny County are working to put a blight property database together and some more urban COGs are handling sewer bills jointly.
He noted larger COGs are making a push for joint services to cut costs, such as shared road crews and equipment and consolidated payroll services.
"I thought it was pretty interesting," Pascuzzi said. "I was really impressed."
Pascuzzi noted that while seeing what other COGs are doing can foster new ideas for implementation at the Warren County level, not all the things being done in more urban areas make sense for smaller areas.
Pascuzzi also said many of his fellow convention attendees were paid COG executive directors. That idea, he said, was not practical for a COG the size of Warren County's, which is made up of volunteer representatives. But, he aded, it did put things in perspective on the differences between urban and rural COGs.